The  Vengeance 
of  Noel  Brassard 


A  Tale  of  the 
Acadian  Expulsion 


By 

Bliss  Carman 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 

Sara  Bard  Field  Wood 


The  Vengeance  of 
Noel  Brassard 


A  Tale  of  the  Acadian  Expulsion 


By 
Bliss   Carman 


GIFT 


To  J.  H.  B.  and  E.  W.  R. 


Wheyi  I  was  very  young  and  small, 
You  held  me  in  your  arms ; 
Before  that  I  could  walk  at  all, 
I  learned  your  gentlest  charms. 

When  I  was  just  a  little  chap, 
And  could  nt  say  a  thing, 
Tou  used  to  take  me  in  your  lap 
And  talk  to  me  and  sing. 


929 


Now  I  can  make  up  my  own  songs 
And  go  about  alone , 

And  hear  strange  tales  in  foreign  tongues 
Of  people  not  my  own  ; 

Tet  all  the  new  alluring  strains. 
Wherever  I  may  go> 
Are  blended  with  the  old  refrains 
That  sound  of  long  ago. 


The  Vengeance  of 
Noel  Brassard 


YOU  say  we  English  like  to  boast 
Of  our  fair  play  and  British  pluck. 
Well,  here  's  a  tale  for  you  who  toast 
Your  toes  and  wish  your  friends  good  luck, 
This  snowy  Christmas  time. 


THE    VENGEANCE 


YOU  take  our  soft  Acadian  land 
In  summer  for  your  thoroughfare; 
One  of  the  gardens  from  God's  hand, 
Orchard  and  dike,  it  greets  you  there  — 
A  dream  of  the  world's  prime. 

BUT  winter,  when  the  snow  comes  down 
From  the  red  edges  of  the  fall, 
To  cover  babbling  stream  and  town 
With  velvet  silence  like  a  pall, 
Can  you  guess  what  it  means  ? 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 

\      ■■ '  v1  '■■'   "..'i-1    L-;  '■"    ",:    r    '■■•••  ■■•  ■     ■•   ■    s 

THE  rivers  sleep ;  the  sun  is  lost; 
And  in  the  deep  woods  now  and  then 
Some  great  tree,  riving  in  the  frost, 
Cracks,  and  the  stillness  falls  again 
Among  the  evergreens. 

BUT  one  man  learned  too  well  who  prowls 
Those  wintry  barrens  choked  with  snow, 
And  guessed  what  manner  of  thing  cowls 
Its  empty  visage  from  man  so, 
Seeing  that  face  too  near. 


THE    VENGEANCE 


THE  Shadow  Hunter,  whose  long  stride 
Mortal  has  yet  to  tire  or  tame, 
Like  moonbeam  over  mountain  side 
Following  round  the  world  —  whose  name 
Men  hold  their  breath  to  hear. 

AND  yet,  they  say,  he  has  a  word 
Sweeter  than  any  save  the  sea, 
To  summon  those  who  once  have  heard 
Beyond  the  bourns  of  misery. 
Though  one  man  doubted,  I  must  think. 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


NOEL  BRASSARD,  named  Beausoleil, 
That  lovely  fall  ...  It  was  the  year 
The  English  traitor  did  betray 
His  king  and  honor;  far  and  near 
He  made  his  hapless  province  drink 

THE  dregs  of  sorrow ;  blood  and  bone, 
He  ground  them  into  dust  between 
The  upper  and  the  nether  stone, 
The  French  and  English.     Wide  and  green 
The  farms  lay  in  the  sun ; 


THE    VENGEANCE 


THE  apples  hung  in  scarlet  ropes 
And  golden  clusters ;  the  ripe  grain 
Went  billowing  up  the  mountain  slopes ; 
And  over  running  dike  and  plain 
The  thousand  cattle  one  by  one 

TRAILED  their  long  shadows  by  the  sea. 
Grand  Pre,  Port  Royal,  Tantramar, 
Minas  and  Shubenacadie, 
Cobequid,  Beausejour,  Canard, 
Melanson,  Aulac,  and  Pereau. 


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OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


WHAT  easier  than,  simple  folk 
Fearing  the  majesty  of  law, 
To  scatter  them  as  the  slow  smoke 
Is  scattered  on  a  windy  flaw, 
From  Beaubassin  to  Gaspereau  ? 

PLUCK  them  and  set  them  down  the  world- 
A  second  St.  Bartholomew  — 
Leaving  the  land  whence  they  are  hurled 
For  Lawrence  and  his  pirate  crew, 
Which  we  enjoy  to-day ! 


THE    VENGEANCE 


NOEL  BRASSARD  stood  by  his  door, 
And  there  was  haste.     The  last  to  flee, 
When  brand  was  set  to  granary  floor, 
House,  barn,  and  church,  in  Chipoudy, 
That  fall,  must  for  a  moment  stay, 

LOADING  his  cart  to  climb  the  crest 
The  sun  at  Michaelmas  just  clears. 
His  wife  with  her  tenth  child  at  breast, 
His  mother  with  her  ninety  years  — 
Safe  now  and  half-way  up  the  hill. 


10 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


AND  there  they  halted ;  the  red  sun 
Crimsoned  the  fir-tops  over  them  ; 
Below  they  saw  the  great  tide  run 
Between  the  grassy  dikes  that  hem 
The  meadows,  when  the  rivers  fill 


F 


ROM  Fundy  like  a  sluice.     They  saw 
Their  windows  in  the  sunset  glare, 
Then  the  first  smoke  of  burning  straw 

Steal  from  a  rick  and  burst  and  flare. 

But  soft !     What  ails  you,  mother  Brassard  ? 


ii 


THE    VENGEANCE 


WHAT  fancy  shakes  your  age?  "My  son, 
I  shall  not  go  with  you,  for  I 
Am  dying,  and  my  strength  is  done ; 
And  by  your  father  I  shall  lie, 
Where  the  white  crosses  are, 

THIS    night."     They  listened.    She  was 
dead. 
(The  record  is  La  Guerne's,  the  priest 
Who  buried  her.)     And  as  she  said, 
It  happened;  the  first  soul  released 
Upon  that  march  with  Death ! 

12 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


AT  night  two  figures,  digging  late 
For  safety,  had  brought  to  a  close 
•  Their  pious  work  ;  the  graveyard  gate 
Creaked  on  its  hinges  ;  the  moon  rose ; 
And  the  white  valley  held  its  breath. 

AH,  Beausoleil,  before  you  now 
The  wilderness  ;  and  by  your  side 
The  shadowy  Walker  of  the  Snow, 
To  journey  with  you,  stride  for  stride, 
On  many  a  drifted  valley  floor ! 


13 


THE    VENGEANCE 


BEHIND  you,  worse  than  Death  can  do ! 
As  dust  upon  the  stream  is  spilled, 
The  wreckage  of  your  kin  shall  strew 
The  shores  of  the  world.     The  land  they  tilled, 
A  politician's  prize  of  war. 

SMALL  choice,  Brassard!     Your  folk  are 
sown 
To  the  four  winds ;  to  men  henceforth 
From  Baton  Rouge  to  Blomidon, 
Labrador  and  the  unpeopled  North, 
"Acadian"  is  an  exile's  name. 

m 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


HE  chose  the  wildernees.     Be  sure 
There  is  a  record  of  that  trail 
From  sounding  Fundy  to  Chaleur, 
In  the  great  map  that  does  not  fail ! 
Yet  now  we  only  read,  he  came 

TO  the  blue  Restigouche  with  spring. 
Under  their  ice-floors  did  he  hear 
Tobique  and  Napadogan  sing, 
And  Mamozekel  whisper  clear 
Secrets  not  good  to  know  ? 


*5 


THE    VENGEANCE 


BY  Villebon's  fort  did  he  press  on, 
Where  dwell  the  unwarlike  Melecites 
By  the  great  route  of  the  St.  John, 
In  boreal  colds  and  summer  heats, 
From  Nerepis  to  Cabineau  ? 

OR  was  his  way  by  the  North  Shore, 
Far  up  to  lonely  Tracadie, 
Where  the  sand  islands  hear  the  roar 
Of  the  great  gulf,  and  Miramichi 
Slows  to  meet  the  tide  ? 


16 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


DID  the  Sevogle  see  him  flit, 
A  gray  and  haggard  shape  of  woe? — 
Or  the  headlong  Nepisiguit, 
Where  the  Basque  sailor  long  ago 
Wedded  his  Mohawk  bride? 

HE  saw  in  the  long  solemn  night 
The  giant  lanterns  of  the  sky 
Streaming  about  the  pole,  to  light 
His  haunted  trail.     Nay,  Beausoleil, 
Dark  was  your  sunshine  then ! 


*7 


THE    VENGEANCE 


AND  always  at  the  dusk  of  day, 
Out  of  the  brushwood,  pace  for  pace, 
Would  come  to  join  them  on  the  way 
The  One  whose  snowshoes  left  no  trace, 
They  knew  not  whence  nor  when. 

MOTHER  and  children,  one  by  one, 
He  bade  the  strangers  stay  with  him ; 
And  they  stayed.     Beausoleil  went  on, 
With  reeling  mind  and  senses  dim, 
One  —  three  —  five  —  nine  — 


18 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


HE  saw  them  smile  and  close  their  eyes^ 
As  the  tall  Spectre  of  the  cold 
Detained  them  by  some  wooded  rise. 
Then  sink  to  sleep  within  the  fold 
Of  moonlit  drift  and  shine. 

IN  the  first  breaking-up  of  spring, 
To  the  blue  Restigouche  there  came, 
With  two  pale  children  following 
Upon  his  heels,  his  eyes  like  flame, 
In  the  gaunt  semblance  of  a  man, 


19 


THE    VENGEANCE 


NOEL  BRASSARD.     Say,  rather,  one 
Who  had  looked  horror  in  the  face, 
And  the  bleak  goblin  had  undone 
The  latches  of  his  soul.     Yet  trace 
Of  hunter's  skill  to  scheme  and  plan 

WAS  left, — the  mind  to  hunt  and  hound 
His  persecutors  from  the  land. 
A  frenzy  at  the  very  sound 
Of  English  names  would  twitch  his  hand 
To  let  the  flintlock's  hammer  fall. 


20 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


BEFORE  he  died  on  D'Anjac's  roll, 
By  thronged  stockade  and  lonely  hut 
He  marked  them  ;  never  missed  a  soul ; 
And  nicked  them  on  his  musket  butt 
Twenty  and  eight  in  all. 

THAT  is  the  story  straight  and  plain. 
Because  one  Englishman  could  pawn 
His  country's  honor  for  mere  gain, 
More  need  we  English  should  not  fawn 
On  Truth  to  cloak  his  crime. 


21 


THE    VENGEANCE 


TOO  simple  your  Acadian  heart, 
My  Noel,  and  too  late  you  strove ! 
Not  in  the  world  was  your  fit  part. 
Yet  peace  !    The  world  moves  on  to  love, 
This  snowy  Christmas  time. 


22 


OF  NOEL  BRASSARD 


ONE  HUNDRED  COPIES  PRINTED  BY 
WILL  BRADLEY  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE,"  MASSACHUSETTS,  IN  DECEM- 
BER,   MDCCCCXIX,    FOR  BLISS    CARMAN 


*3 


rifyu^ 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


BREN 


